Future Tense (2026)

In a volatile near-future in which wealthy tourists use time-travel to escape to the past, an interracial couple’s relationship is put to the test when one of them decides to change history.

Still courtesy Fantastic Fest

Though horror is usually my thing, one sci-fi trope I love is time travel, and, like any fan of time travel, I've asked the question, "Would you go back in time and kill Hitler?"

In Future Tense, directed by Jenna Cato Bass, time travel is used for vacation purposes, with history itself closely guarded by the 1% so nobody gets any funny ideas about doing things like killing Hitler and altering the history that got them where they are.

Of course, when the white half of the interracial couple Tara makes that joke, and Lwando seriously asks why "you whites always go there," his travel anxiety starts to seem a little more serious. We soon learn he has similar thoughts about improving the present through changing the past events which eventually lead to European colonialism of South Africa and presumably the current (well, slightly future to us) dystopia which has Tara's young students begging her to stay in the past for her own good when she goes on the trip.

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Future Tense is beautifully shot, and I love the ideas about the big and small ways we can impact our world and the future. I wish more time had been spent on those conversations in the film than with their relationship which wasn't that interesting to me and which was most useful as a shortcut to understanding an outcome of their travel.

Future Tense screened at Fantastic Fest.